THR & The Blacklist

November 21, 2012 12:36 AM

After 65 Years The Hollywood Reporter addresses its role in the hollywood blacklist, including an apology from W.R. Wilkerson III, son of THR founder Billy Wilkerson whose "A Vote For Joe Stalin" editorial named writers such as Dalton Trumbo, Lester Cole, Howard Koch and John Howard Lawson as communist sympathisers.
posted by Artw (8 comments total)

The Blacklist. When I was reading Mailer's "Armies of the Night" last summer, I was reminded of how successful the Blacklist was. Mailer's opinion was that these right wing McCarthy-ist attacks were so effective at associating communists with Democrats (and vice versa) that they alienated the nominally anti-communist white middle working class from the Democratic party and that this demographic reality drove the Democrats to embrace "the negro" and civil rights. And not the other way around. Which is an interesting thesis. The Hollywood Reporter probably never saw that coming. In this light, Johnson's quip after signing the 1964 Civil Right Act "We have lost the South for a Generation" was perhaps more of a comment on the then present state of affairs than a prediction of the future.
posted by three blind mice at 1:14 AM on November 21, 2012 [2 favorites]

The more I learn about America's hysterics during the cold war, suspecting the sympathies of their neighbors and movie stars, the more I believe it to be a defense mechanism. People were previously so nervous about losing their businesses and farms for lack of payment to banks, that communist theory came along and superseded this anxiety almost completely. I always wonder how much of it was manufactured.
posted by Brian B. at 1:48 AM on November 21, 2012

Oh my:

But on this afternoon, as Wilkerson slipped into the confessional, he only wanted to speak with one person: Father Cornelius J. McCoy.

"Father, I'm launching a campaign, and it's gonna cause a lot of hurt. But they are, you know, antipathetic to my faith. They are my natural enemies. And I just need to know what to do," Wilkerson said. "You know, father, I'm having misgivings about doing this campaign."

Wilkerson waited for an answer. All across Tinseltown, livelihoods -- and lives -- hung in the balance.

"Get those bastards, Billy," McCoy replied.

posted by MonkeyToes at 4:56 AM on November 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh my indeed. Who is the source of this quote from the confessional?
posted by IndigoJones at 5:17 AM on November 21, 2012 [3 favorites]

We're not happy unless we have someone to hate and fear.
posted by tommasz at 5:48 AM on November 21, 2012

He normally winds me up no end, but I found Sean Penn's piece about his father and his role in the blacklist really moving.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 6:17 AM on November 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

*rewatches The Front*
posted by Sys Rq at 7:28 AM on November 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oddly the wiki page for Bill Wilkerson only mentions the blacklist in passing, but has LOTS on him hanging out with gangsters.
posted by Artw at 9:40 AM on November 21, 2012